Meet Philip Dracht: Your Storyteller in the Courtroom

Phil is from a small farming community in northern Michigan. As a teenager, he's learned to throw hay bales, pick potatoes, prune Christmas trees, and work construction.  From those beginnings, he's moved on up to a fancy offices, law firm partnership, to owning his own law firm. But he's never forgotten those roots, and has distilled the lesson that the further you get away from the source of your food, the more bull shit you have to shovel. 

He sees defendants shoveling bullshit on a regular basis.  Corporate executives hiding behind their expensive-suited defense lawyers who bill astronomical fees by the hour, like the feudal bosses of old, protected by their knights and esquires. Bosses systematically stealing wages from employees and calling it an "oversight." Companies engaging in passive aggressive robbery -- tacking on a couple dollars here and there and calling them "administrative fees," which, spread over millions of customers, quickly become billions in profit. 

Phil went to undergraduate at Calvin College, a small Christian liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he majored in Political Science, Philosophy, and History.  Upon graduation from the University of Michigan School of Law in 2001, Dracht began working representing labor unions in Los Angeles.  From there, he transitioned to class and complex actions in Santa Barbara.  For family reasons, he moved to Salt Lake City and joined a reputable defense law firm, becoming a partner there. There he represented some of the largest companies in the world, with a focus on banks. While financially lucrative, that work left him unfulfilled. Dracht went to law school to fight for the little guy -- the underdog. And there he was doing the opposite.  So he and his family moved back to Santa Barbara where he opened Dracht Law.  

Dracht only takes a handful of cases at a time. He chooses his clients and his causes carefully and, once chosen, works tireless on their behalf. 

Phil and his wife and three kids live in Santa Barbara. They can be seen out and about the town riding bikes and being an active family and are usually found at the beach or hiking in the mountains on most weekends.

Tulie, the family Bernadoodle, is Phil's loyal and trustworthy office dog.